Before he was known as Captain Solarius, he was just Edward Cole—a lanky, wide-eyed kid growing up in the South Side of Chicago in the late 1980s. Life wasn't glamorous. His clothes were hand-me-downs, his shoes too tight or too loose, and his imagination too big for the neighborhood he lived in. He believed that comic books weren't just stories—they were possibilities. Somewhere deep down, he truly thought superheroes could be real.
Edward's world was small, made of cracked sidewalks, rusty fences, and basketball courts scarred by time. The corner stores smelled like a strange mix of bubblegum and bleach. If you weren't careful, you'd get lost in alleys that seemed to swallow sound. But he didn't explore them alone.
His best friend, Adam Frost, lived just down the street. Adam was wiry, sharp-eyed, and
always thinking two steps ahead. Where Edward dreamed of flying through the sky and shooting fire from his hands, Adam was fascinated by the things that lived in the dark—the quiet places, the mysteries people were too afraid to look at. They were inseparable, two halves of the same dream. If Edward was light, Adam was shadow.
Together, they turned their dull surroundings into adventures. Every alley was a battleground. Every rooftop a secret base. The world hadn't given them much, so they built their own with imagination and friendship.
Then came 1999.
They were fifteen. Old enough to know the world wasn't fair, but still young enough to believe it could be. That's when everything changed.
A meteor fell.
It crashed in an abandoned rail yard two miles from the city center—buried beneath rusted-out train cars and graffiti-covered concrete. No one else seemed to notice it, but they did. They found it late one night after sneaking past a crumbling fence, flashlights trembling in their hands.
It didn't look like a rock. It pulsed faintly, glowing with a soft, golden light—alive, somehow. They called it the star rock.
Edward touched it first.
And everything changed.
The moment his fingers met the stone, he felt warmth spread through his body—like sunlight was flooding his veins. It didn't hurt. It felt right. He could summon light from his palms, little orbs that floated and danced. When he concentrated, it became fire. And when he closed his eyes, he felt something alive burning in his chest. A miniature sun.
Adam touched it second.
His experience was different. Where Edward felt warmth and radiance, Adam felt cold. Shadows curled around his skin, wrapping around his arms like mist. His eyes darkened, and the light around them dimmed slightly. The darkness didn't scare him—it answered him. It obeyed.
At first, it was beautiful.
They trained in secret. They met in abandoned warehouses and rooftops at midnight, testing their powers away from prying eyes. They gave themselves names, like the heroes they'd grown up admiring. Edward became Solarius, the boy of light. Adam called himself Crow, a creature of shadows.
But power changes people.
They tried to be heroes—stopping petty crimes, helping people, preventing fights. But they were just kids, and sometimes they made mistakes. A building collapsed once. A car spun out of control another time. People got hurt. The city grew suspicious.
So they started hiding what they did. Erasing memories.
Edward learned he could use his light to wipe memories away. Adam could cloud people's minds with darkness, make them forget. It became a cycle: help, hide, forget.
Then came Rebecca.
She was nothing like them. She didn't have powers. But she was real. Beautiful. Fiercely kind. She was a nursing student who volunteered at homeless shelters, read poetry in parks, and smiled like she carried sunlight in her chest. Adam fell in love with her. And somehow—against every odd—she fell for him, too.
Edward watched them, smiling quietly. For the first time, he let himself believe they might all have a future. Maybe they'd leave the powers behind. Maybe they'd live normal lives.
But then came 2007.
It wasn't a supervillain or a dramatic battle. Just a car. A rainy night. A drunk driver. Rebecca was caught in the crash. She died in Adam's arms before help arrived.
And something inside Crow shattered.
Adam disappeared. Edward searched everywhere—rooftops, alleyways, even slipping into people's dreams using his light, desperate to find him. Months passed before he finally did.
But the Adam he found wasn't the one he remembered.
He was pale. Gaunt. His voice a whisper. He spoke in riddles, murmuring about shadows and souls. About how people's shadows carried fragments of who they were. About how, if he collected enough... maybe he could bring her back.
Edward tried to talk him down. To remind him who he was.
But that Crow was gone.
And so, the war began.
Crow didn't want to save anyone anymore. He wanted shadows—stole them from people like secrets. Each time he took one, the victim changed. Grew empty. Less human.
Edward tried everything. Pleading. Fighting. Crying. Nothing worked.
They battled city after city. Light against dark. Fire against silence. Entire blocks fell to ruin in their wake. Until, in a final act of desperation, Edward poured everything he had into one final attack. A prism of pure light. He trapped Crow inside it—a glowing vault buried deep beneath Chicago. A place without even a sliver of shadow. A place where darkness couldn't grow.
And then... Edward vanished.
Captain Solarius became a myth. A whisper. A name people spoke like a ghost story. Some said they saw him sometimes—just for a second—when sunlight hit an alley just right.
For years, the world moved on.
But now, something is stirring.
Crow's prison grows restless.
And somewhere, someone has found Solarius's mask.
And if the mask is back...
So is the light.